#Beakley did come across this ‘award’

[aaandbackstabbed]

Dewey: Oh, here’s my award for the most rules broken!

Louie: That’s not an award, it’s an angry letter from Mrs Beakley..

Dewey, hanging it on his wall: Well, it has the word ‘most’ in it, so I’m calling it an award

[adamarinayu]

Musings

The day’s festivities over with, Louie just wanted to settle down with a good thriller and relax, maybe fall asleep listening to his music on blast. Maybe, he thought as his fingers brushed over the spine of an old spiral notebook, he’d even draw a bit to wind down.

However, before he could turn to his sketchbook sitting askew on top of the bookshelf, his hand found something else.

It was a small notebook, he noticed, brow furrowing. The duck couldn’t remember exactly what it was, though, and gingerly he plucked it from its spot and looked at the front.

It was small enough to fit in his hand, and it was simple- purple cover with gold vertical stripes down the front. It seemed vaguely familiar, so Louie flipped it open to the first page.

Musings, the front page declared. Underneath it was listed the names, Huey Duck, Dewey Duck, Louie Duck and Webby Vanderquack.

Curious, he turned the page, and almost immediately he felt himself thrown back ten years, to the early days there at McDuck Manor. He sucked in a breath, eyes widening as he took in the childish writings of a twelve year old duckling.

You know, a sparkly pink pen read, rainy days aren’t so bad. They just make the sunshine even better!

Plus they water all the trees, a simple red ink replied, so logically, to the optimistic duck’s musing.

He remembered so vividly watching his oldest brother write it out, rolling his eyes at such a Huey response.

His chest tightened and his eyes suddenly started burning. He flipped the page.

Guys! blue seemed to scream out excitedly, its metallic gleam demanding of all attention. Have you ever wondered what would happen if Earth had moon gravity?

Louie let out an almost breathless laugh, remembering Huey’s quiet outrage at the simple question.

We’d all die! Huey’s pen had scribbled frantically for their brother to find later.

How? Louie had asked with a simple flourish of his smooth green ink. He said gravity, not atmosphere.

Oh the lecture that had earned him. He found himself laughing, once again at their twelve-year-old selves, leaning against his bookshelf to continue reading more musings.

There was Webby’s observation on Donald being like their father. There was Louie’s declaration that money didn’t, after all, make their lives better. Huey’s note on how it was their family, their friends and everything in between that made life as adventurous, wonderful and amazing as it was. Dewey calling them all saps even as he said he loved them. He read through an entire year’s worth of musings and observations, questions and answers, declarations and quotes, confessions and secrets...

But then, all too soon, Louie found himself flipping to an empty page.

Louie was twenty-two years old now, and the last time he’d written in that notebook he was thirteen. Almost ten years had passed.

He had forgotten it.

Wiping his eyes, not even realizing tears had started to fall, Louie set the notebook down on top of his sketchbook and began looking through the shelf again.

Soon he came across his very first sketchbook- fourteen years old, Louie had only just come to discover his love for art. He opened the sketchbook and immediately cringed as he saw the first page, but he smiled anyway. Laughing to himself, he flipped through every page, fondly remembering every drawing.

It looks like a tree, he remembered Dewey commenting about the first dog he ever tried to draw.

I think it’s cute, Webby had complimented, and though Louie was embarrassed he was still so grateful for her vote of confidence.

Here, Louie, since you’re drawing now, these might help, Huey had said, handing him over some reference and self-teaching books. They had helped a lot, Louie remembered, his eyes sliding over to the books still sitting on his shelf eight years later. They were well-worn, well-used and well taken care of, the first books Louie ever found value in.

They had supported him even before his skills improved. Before he was able to draw portraits or landscapes, back when he could only draw little cartoons and everyone just rolled their eyes when they saw him doodling. They showed interest before anyone cared. He swallowed and set the sketchbook back in place.

He picked up the yearbook right beside it.

Senior year. He, Huey, Louie and Webby had each gotten their own copies of this yearbook, so they could sign each others’. Louie couldn’t help but grin slightly, opening the cover to the inside page absolutely littered with notes and signatures.

Dewey’s excited words took up a large space on the inside cover, and Huey’s more subdued but still larger than life note was right there beside it. Webby’s was right underneath, all three of them talking about graduations and future adventures and how much fun awaited them- together.

But, Louie knew, everything wasn’t quite right with that. He flipped through the senior portraits, cringing only slightly when he passed his own (long hair, he realized, was never quite right for him...), and into the award pages. Valedictorian and Salutatorian- the former, of course, was Huey, and the latter was a girl Louie couldn’t quite remember. Most likely to succeed? Huey again, and a girl Webby briefly dated in junior year. Most quiet? Surprisingly, Louie got that one- he never really considered himself quiet, but his classmates seemed to think he was. Most sporting went hands down to both Dewey and Webby.

Thinking back on it, Louie was somewhat amazed at just how many spaces the four of them took up in this book.

He skipped over the center pages, going straight for the clubs and teams. There was Dewey in the drama club and soccer team, Huey in the math club and chess team, Webby in pretty much every sports team there was- Louie still didn’t know how she managed that- and Louie in the art club. He’d been president of the club that year, something he still took pride in. Not even Huey was a club president.

Then there was the Junior Woodchucks, and with it the realization that it was the only picture in the entire book that all four of them were part of.

Louie swallowed again, closing the yearbook and looking back at their musings notebook.

Everything was different, but it was only just hitting him, he realized. Everything had changed- had been changing for years.

Without really thinking, he grabbed a photo album and began flipping through.

Ducklings, all playing together. Growing up together. Going on adventures, having each others’ backs, helping each other.

Teenagers, some adventure experience under their belts. Uncle Donald and Uncle Scrooge were both looking a little older, and so proud of the ducks they were growing up to be.

There was highschool prom. A group picture of all four of them and their dates- Louie with a girl who was always “just a friend” but neither wanted to go alone, Dewey with his on-again-off-again at-the-time boyfriend, Webby with the girl she was now engaged to, and Huey with someone Louie couldn’t remember- a face in the crowd, someone whose name long escaped him.

Then there was Huey holding his acceptance letters to basically every college ever (though Huey and Uncle Donald both told him there would be many more letters if that were the case, Louie still maintained this belief), Dewey standing there in his new aviator uniform, Webby with her new gadgets as she was officially accepted to be a spy for her grandmother’s organization...

A picture of Webby being proposed to showed up- Louie remembered that well, he and his brother’s were involved in the planning and Webby was so suspicious of them.

There was Dewey, beaming beside his very own airplane- nothing fancy, Uncle Donald just asked Launchpad to fix up Della’s old plane as a gift from himself, Uncle Scrooge and, by extension, their mother.

There was Louie himself, in front of his very own section in the art gallery, standing so proudly as people complimented his work- three pieces were sold that day, the only three pieces of his that were for sale that time.

Huey showed up, back from university and sitting on the couch during the Christmas holidays, bright-eyed and excitedly introducing the family to the girl his arm was around, the girl that he eventually married.

Married.

His breath slowly left him, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He opened it up and stared at the background cycling through his pictures.

A beautiful duck in a beautiful gown, in a beautiful wedding paid for mostly by Uncle Scrooge and Uncle Donald. Louie’s oldest brother in a black tux and red tie. Dewey and Louie dressed similarly, with a blue and green tie respectively, right beside him, and Webby in a simple, but elegant, purple gown.

They, along with Launchpad, were his groomsmen and groomsmaid. No best man- Huey couldn’t bring himself to choose between his brothers. It was so stupid, but Louie had felt happy that he refused to pick.

There was Uncle Gladstone, who managed through sheer luck to get a honeymoon cruise for the happy couple. There was the cake Mrs. Beakley and Uncle Donald made with their bare hands, the banquet they had begrudgingly accepted outside help for. The limo that Uncle Scrooge had lent the newlyweds- shiny and clean and white and perfect, JUST MARRIED proudly displayed on the back.

There was Huey, having dragged Donald out for an Uncle-Nephew dance. Donald had cried, and Louie knew he had been thinking what everyone was- that their mother would have wanted this, would have wanted to be there, to have a mother-son dance at her son’s wedding. But Della wasn’t there and Donald was, and Donald had raised them with blood, sweat, tears and sheer determination. and Huey was not about to ignore that.

Louie swallowed past a painful lump, watching the pictures he had taken just earlier that day- and some that Uncle Donald and Uncle Gladstone and Uncle Fethry and Lena had taken for him- slide by. There were tears, smiles, laughter, it was such a perfect happy wedding and-

Why did it hurt so bad now?

Louie had been happy. He was so happy for his brother- Huey was happy, he was in love and she was in love and... Louie still was happy for him. So happy Huey had someone to spend the rest of his life with.

They had plans for children. Louie was going to be an uncle, too. They were gonna buy a house right there in Duckburg, raise their kids with the family, and everyone would be together and happy. Nothing was changing.

Except it had changed a long time ago.

They weren’t children anymore.

Taking a shuddering breath, Louie grabbed the Musings notebook and stepped back into his bedroom.

His bedroom- it had been his bedroom for a good six or so years now, when Huey and Dewey finally decided to move to other rooms in the manor. He’d been fine with that- a room to himself! But now it was just one more hit, one more realization that it wasn’t the same.

He dropped down at his desk and flipped to the first blank page, thinking on what he was doing, and grabbed one of his new, fancy ink pens.

It was green, of course- greener than the faded ink on the pages before, he noted as he put down that day’s date.

With no idea what he wanted to say, Louie began to write.

I don’t know if anyone else will look at this, he wrote, the pen seeming to have a mind of its own. It’s been long forgotten. I forgot it, too. And I’m sure when I put this notebook back on the shelf, I’ll forget it all over again.

Maybe I’ll find it again in another ten years. Maybe I never will. I think it’s fine, either way.

Louie paused, staring down at his words. He wasn’t even sure what he was saying- this was in his closet. The likelihood that anyone would even see it was... minuscule, at best.

Still, he continued writing.

So, today I finally realized something. I knew on some level, of course, but today it finally became reality.

We’re not kids anymore. We’ve grown up. Graduated. Married. And soon we’ll all be going our separate ways. Huey’s got a wife. Dewey’s a pilot now. Webby’s working for the government. And my art’s taking me all around the world. Everything’s changing. Everything’s already changed.

Yet still, nothing’s changed at all.

We’re still close. We still go on adventures. We still talk every day. We still support each other in everything- so why does it feel like I’m losing something?

I guess after all these years of being together, I forgot to start imagining my life without you all. For some reason, I never pictured myself without you right there by my side. Strange, isn’t it?

We’re not those kids who used to play pretend, or go on adventures behind Uncle Donald’s back. We’re not those kids who walked aimlessly around town, or spent hours playing videogames together. We’re not those kids anymore, but at the same time it feels like we always will be.

We’ve become seasoned explorers. We’ve followed Mom and Uncle Donald’s path- a path Uncle Donald didn’t want us to follow, but was hopeless to keep us from. It’s in our blood, and it always will be. It’s just time for us to start our own solo adventures.

After all these years, I don’t think I once said, “I love you.” I guess I always thought it was implied. That it didn’t need to be said- we’d always be together, right? At times, it felt like we were all we had. Of course you’d know I care- right?

Well, I’ve never said it before but I’ll say it now; I love you guys. Huey, Dewey, Webby... You guys mean more to me than I ever knew how to say. And even though we’re leaving our childhood behind, we’re gonna remember the good times and we’re gonna go proudly into that future the past has made for us.

Even if that means going our separate ways.

We’re not children anymore. We’re adults now. I guess that means it’s time to grow up.

Louie wasn’t sure about anything he just wrote, but he signed his name anyway- his handwriting wasn’t much, admittedly, but his signature was always flawless from years of practice, and he signed his newest musing, a letter that would never be read, with all the care he put into every painting, every sketch, every portrait.

Then he read over his note again and gently closed the book for the last time.

He said nothing, even to himself, as he returned the notebook to his shelf, sliding it back into place as though it had never left. Then he picked his sketchbook up, stepped out of his closet, closed the door and went to his bed.

There was nothing to say.